Yes security sect reforms are a must if there is to be free elections. What I find infuriating about Tsvangirai is why he has done nothing on the matter for the last two years. Thank God President Zuma has taken this up; still there is a limit to what even he can achieve in the few months before elections.
President Zuma faces three main challenges; the biggest and immediate challenge is time. The writing of the new constitution has taken over two years already and there is still little to show for because Zanu PF kept throwing spanners in the works. It suited the party to do so. Now that the party has decided to have fresh elections this year, the nation will be whipped into a stampede to make sure that happens. The party does not want to see any democratic reforms pushed through and making sure there is no time is one way to ensure they achieve this.
Second, whatever reforms President Zuma force the three parties to sign to in the roadmap have a snowball in hell chance they will not be honoured on the ground; particularly when they can not be enforced by law. Mugabe will see to it that any proposed laws threatening his dictatorial powers are kicked into the tall grass!
Last but by no means least; no nation can hope to have peace and to prosper when those entrusted with the duty of keeping law and order and themselves guilty of breaking the law. The rule of law is the foundation of peace, justice, freedom, liberty, economic prosperity; all the good things we all seek in life! Zanu PF has used all manner of ways to coerce and corrupt our people into doing things they know are wrong and are damaging to the common interest including their own person interest. The overwhelming majority in the Police, Army, etc have suffered greatly from the madness of this Mugabe dictatorship as have the rest of us.
The Police Officers and the Soldiers, deployed throughout the country, to intimidate, rape and murder know that it is Mugabe and his cronies who stand to gain from all this; they are not stupid. They have allowed themselves to be a key part of this madness because no one has yet presented to them an alternative vision of Zimbabwe freed of this madness.
Waving some piece of paper signed by some up starts in Cape Town saying a Police Officer must enforce the law regardless of political affiliation will not be enough to restore law and order. To win this war, there has to be boots on the ground to sell the democratic Zimbabwe brand. It is not a hard sell, God knows it sells itself, and yet MDC, who should have been selling it, have failed miserably to do so. Can not see what President Zuma can do on this one.
Reforming Zimbabwe’s Police and Army are a must for democratic elections but, sadly, that is not going to happen; with Mugabe determined to have elections this year, it is a bridge too far!
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